Mike Milbury was in an empty dressing room following a 4-3 Bruin win over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden 25 years ago, wondering where were the rest of his teammates.

“I was the first one back to the locker room, it was [around] Christmas, I was happy; Ranger fans didn’t take to losing too well,” Milbury said. “Gerry Cheevers came in and I asked him where everyone else was and he said, ‘There’s some sort of beef going on.’ ”

That “beef” was the start of a brawl between the Bruins and a group of fans at the Garden, Dec. 23, 1979. Milbury, infamous for slapping a fan with one of his own shoes in that fracas, said yesterday that no matter how comical the event may seem on tape, it was a dangerous and terrifying situation to be in the middle of, not unlike what happened in the Detroit-Indiana basket-brawl Friday night.

“The mood in the stands was disbelief, panic and fear,” Milbury, now the Islander GM, recalled. “I went from happy mode to full-blown survival mode.”

Milbury came out of the dressing room and found the rest of his team climbing into the stands. They were going after someone who, during a post-game minor scrum on the ice between the two teams, grabbed one of the players’ sticks and swung it at Bruin Stan Jonathan. Milbury ran, his skates still on, up the stairs and into the stands to help his teammates, all following the lead of captain Terry O’Reilly.

“You just went into ‘go’ mode,” Milbury said. “I wanted to protect him, the team, it was the thing to do.”

Milbury described the energy level as being “electric,” and “off the charts,” and said there was “panic” in the stands.

When he finally reached his teammates, Peter McNabb had a fan pinned down and in no position to fight, but the guy was kicking and cursing. One of his shoes ended up in Milbury’s hand and he hit him with it. The whole thing was caught on video.

“The worst thing I did was throw the shoe on the ice, which I thought was the perfect medicine,” Milbury said. “And he got a slap on the thigh with his cheap penny loafer.”